Whirlwind in Beijing

We arrived in Beijing at a respectable 12:30pm. The flight seemed a little bumpy but we both slept a chunk of it. Regan wasn’t feeling that great but we decided to leave the airport. There is not much to do in T3 for 11 hours. We passed through security and customs in record time. Doing it a second time was so easy.

We had decided just to take a taxi into a shopping street in the centre of Beijing called Wangfujing. Nice and easy from the airport as they have regulated taxi drivers and consistent fare expectations. It took 40 minutes to get in and I loved the roses being used as road side planting.

We certainly knew when we had hit the right area as there were people everywhere. We went in and out of shops and the malls seeing what was available. Most iof it is very high end and only some Uniqlo tshirts made it into the suitcase.

The plan had been to take the subway back to the airport. However after we passed the security scans we found the only ticket office open the attendant did not speak English. We knew we had to change lines to the ‘new’ airport extension and it all ended up being too hard.

We decided to take a taxi back to the airport as Regan really needed a snooze opportunity. This proved tricky as the first cab we managed to flag down offered to not put on the meter and just take 200 yuans ( more than twice what we had paid. We ended up bailing and went to a hotel reception to see if they could help.

She was lovely and we arrived back at the airport and only paid a fraction of our initial fare as he took a toll road which was faster. Straight back to Terminal 3 and have spent the last 5 hours having a glorious shower and reading. I am quite surprised how quiet this area of the airport is, not many passengers in a vast space. We are both super keen to get onto this last flight and get home now.Read more